


ah, gertie

by john1513



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale & Crowley Friendship (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Kittens, M/M, Male Aziraphale (Good Omens), Male Crowley (Good Omens), Misunderstandings, One Shot, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), minor original character she's not really in the story though, no beta we reckless, prompt list, she's more of a plot device tbh sorry gertie, this one is just the two being Big Dorks and loving each other and that is all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26059429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/john1513/pseuds/john1513
Summary: aziraphale, angel of the eastern gate (most recently, guardian of soho) fears that the old lady across the road is being burgled. crowley's involved, because of course he is. it's a funny one, i promise.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 78





	ah, gertie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Izabella95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izabella95/gifts).



> this fic is part of the project by [@we-are-on-our-own-side](https://we-are-on-our-own-side.tumblr.com/) on tumblr of weekly prompts! this week's prompt was kittens, although i fear i have veered far past the prompt, my apologies lol. i would definitely recommend the page if you're looking for some fun prompts and a nice community of writers!  
> additionally, this fic is *entirely* written for my good friend [@izabella95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izabella95) (go check her stuff out, she's a genius). she came up with pretty much most of the good bits over a late night whatsapp good omens discussion, and i just happened to write it all down. thank you for your galaxy brain input and i hope you like this one!!!

That was definitely _not_ Miss Gambini. 

Aziraphale knew Miss Gambini, or as well as you could know a distant neighbor. He knew that she was a sweet old lady, small in stature and stout, adorably so. She often wandered into the bookshop with a bag or two of groceries, and would stop in to browse the books, although she never did try to buy anything. This is precisely why Aziraphale liked her. Sometimes she’d even offer a small wave and a smile Aziraphale’s way, or would send a nice, “And how are you doing this evening, dear boy? Weather’s dreadful these days, isn’t it? Can’t wait for spring to come, just can’t come soon enough. Go on, I bought some biscuits, have a few.” He would take some, gratefully, albeit far, far away from any of the books. And if any crumbs happened to scatter on the floor, it would miraculously be gone by the time she had walked out of the door. 

She was kind. And then she’d wave a polite goodbye and be on her way, just across the road and up the stairs and into the flat just in front of and above the bookshop. Aziraphale wondered if she minded the stairs, or the noise of the restaurant below her. He worried about her sometimes, and would watch discreetly every night for her to arrive at her flat, turn on the living room light, presumably bustle round for a few hours, and then turn out the light at precisely 9 o’clock, and go to bed. He watched this routine every night from the front of his bookshop, and sent a small blessing up her way when he’d notice the light turn out later than usual, or when he’d known she’d had a long day. 

But tonight, Aziraphale was certain that he was _not_ seeing Miss Gambini up in the flat. It was far past 9 o’clock in the evening, and the lights were out. But Aziraphale could clearly see a man’s figure, tall and lurking, drifting back and forth past the window that faced the bookshop. The man was tall and thin and not at all any friend of Miss Gambini’s. Not at this hour, no, and Aziraphale had never heard her mention any nephew or grandson or anything of the sort to him before. Not that they’d ever had extensive conversations of the sort, but, well, isn’t that the tendency of every old woman? To talk about their young? Truthfully, Aziraphale could hardly know for sure but he knew, somehow, this all looked wrong. It felt wrong. 

Aziraphale looked discreetly up at the window as he noticed the shadow drift by the window once again, seeming almost to crouch and pick something up. A burglar, then.

Aziraphale felt a hot surge of anger rush through his veins at the injustice, at the wretched being that dared steal from such a sweet woman. And a touch of belated fear at the thought of what might have happened to poor Miss Gambini if they were both trapped in the flat at the same time. Aziraphale took a sharp intake of breath and sent a Very Good Blessing her way, and furrowed his brow in anger. 

“This...this _thief_ has no _idea_ whose protection she’s under. Oh, they’ll see,” he muttered darkly under his breath, and felt a glimmer of strength surge under his skin, the Guardian of the Eastern Gate taking a small shift to become the temporary Guardian of Soho’s Senior Citizens. Aziraphale stood up a bit straighter and steeled himself, grabbing the nearest poke-y object in his peripheral, which just happened to be a slim, gray umbrella a customer had accidentally left behind. 

“Well, that’ll just have to do,” he murmured, weighing it in his hands. He could make it into the Flaming Sword if he so needed it to be, he just needed to believe he could. At least, that’s what Crowley had told him. He makes it all sound so easy. Aziraphale was careful to drift around the bookshop, turning lights out as he went, and then flicked on the lightswitch for his upstairs, in order to throw off the assailant. He sneaked out the back door of the bookshop clandestinely and held the umbrella at his side casually, hoping to avoid suspicion and appear quite simply as a Normal Human Being, out on a Normal Human Stroll. (In actuality, there was no one on the street to see him, and so the intention itself was quite pointless. However, if there had been someone on the street to see him, they’d have thought him the most obviously suspicious person around.)

Aziraphale reached the side of the restaurant and climbed the iron steps as quietly as he was able. He felt a small thrill run up his spine at the adventure of it all; sure, he could have just as easily miracled himself right to the front door, but maybe Crowley had been right all along, loving all those James Bond movies. This was quite fun. Also, Aziraphale may have simply forgotten that he could have saved quite some time with a miracle, caught up in the action of it all. It felt like being in the middle of one of his more adrenaline-soaked books.

Aziraphale creaked open the unfortunately heavy door that lead to a quiet hallway, and Aziraphale took a sharp breath. The door clicked shut behind him ominously, and he shifted the umbrella in his hand into a fighting stance, both hands gripping its handle tightly, ready for a tussle. Aziraphale inched forward to the only door at the end of the short hallway and took one last breath before taking a hard fist and banging it loudly, thrice, on the door. 

“Open up, I know you’re in there!” He yelled in a deeper voice than he was used to, something he’d picked up from the movies Crowley would make him watch sometimes. They all spoke like they’d been gargling gravel before the fight. 

He once again readied his hands at his umbrella, and as the door slowly opened he swung it up with all his force, ready to bring it down straight on the intruder’s head when----

“Aziraphale?” came the voice at the door. “What the heaven are you doing here?”

Aziraphale opened his eyes that he hadn’t realized he’d shut in the first place and blinked owlishly at the being before him.

“Crowley?” He made a series of confused, contained noises. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Yeah, well, I asked first,” Crowley bit back. He rubbed his eyes with a soft hand, like he’d just been woken from a nap.

Aziraphale stuttered, and the umbrella remained high in the air. “I...well. I thought someone was….in here.”

Crowley huffed. “Well, there is.”

“Erm, I mean. Well, I know the woman who lives here, and I saw a shadow, and---”

“Is that an umbrella?” Crowley bit back a smile, so unsuccessfully that Aziraphale wondered why he’d even tried. He lowered the umbrella ever so slowly and let it drop lamely to his side. 

“I thought someone was attacking Miss Gambini, I thought you were a thief, I saw you... _lurking_ about, dear, now, what’s all that about?”

“....Gertie?”

Aziraphale felt all the adrenaline slowly slipping from his veins, leaving behind a thin trail of embarrassment and the thought that maybe, just maybe he’d gotten a bit carried away. “Gertie? How do you know Miss...Gertie, then?”

“Old friend,” Crowley said simply.

“Crowley, you don’t have any _friends_ , why are you even here? Where is Miss Gambini?” Aziraphale could feel a small blush creeping onto his cheeks. Maybe Crowley wouldn’t notice in the dim hall lighting.

“She’s on holiday, Aziraphale. Visiting a cousin in the South Downs, or something, don’t know. Don’t care.” He did care. She had a lovely cottage out there, and had often offered it to Crowley as a small getaway spot for Crowley and his ‘sweet man’ someday. So what if Gertie called him to check up sometimes and Crowley happened to divulge about the play he’d watched with Aziraphale or the nice flowers he’d gotten him the other day? Crowley was just wasting her precious time, a dastardly act. Sometimes he’d even talk too long and cut into her scheduled Golden Girls time on TV. An evil act, he knew. 

Crowley had never actually told her who Aziraphale was, but all the same she’d offered the cottage to him, in case they’d just ‘needed to get away’ one of these days. He might actually take her up on that offer someday. He was still trying to figure out a way to justify the act for Evil Purposes. He’d come up with one eventually.

Aziraphale had been staring at him for far too long. “But...I---” he stopped, and started again. “And you’re here because? Surely…surely to steal her things while she’s gone or...or something...awful, yes. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Mmm, nah, I’m, uh. Cat-sitting.”

Aziraphale was so confused. “...Cat-sitting?”

“Yep. Taking care of her cat while she’s gone.”

“I...I didn’t even know you like cats. Wait, Miss Gambini has a cat?”

“Yeah, Gertie found a kitten last week, all sad and hungry. Couldn’t leave it behind. Asked me to take care of it for a few days,” Crowley watched the absolute confusion etched over every line in his soft, round face. “Look, I owe her for something, alright? It’s no big deal.”

“What….could you possibly owe her for?”

“Eh, she helped me a bit with the whole M25 business, hated her job, may have handed me the keys to the building to access after hours for nefarious purposes. It all worked out just fine, thanks to ol’ Gertie.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale admonished, the pretense of righteous anger all gone now, just a fond frustration for the clever wiles of his friend, and the startling kindness of the man he loved. “So, the great Anthony Janthony---”

“--- _Please_ don’t call me that,”

“ _Crowley_ ,” he finished with added emphasis, “doing, dare I say...a good deed?”

“Blergh, no,” he waved his hands around like an invisible fly pestered at his face, “Not Good, no. Just repaying a debt. Plus, I went by another bookshop---”

“You went to _another_ bookshop?” Aziraphale clutched at his heart dramatically.

“---And stole some crime novels and hid them around the house so that when she gets back from holiday she might get inspired to stoke the fire of Evil that still lurks in her soul somewhere.” There was not a drop of evil in that woman’s heart. Crowley knew this, and Aziraphale knew this.

“You _stole_ books from a bookshop, you went to someone _else’s_ bookshop, Crowley, I am utterly disappointed in you, how dreadful. What shop was this?”

“Ah, that snobby one just down the road that we hate, you know the one.”

Aziraphale shook his head angrily (fondly) at Crowley, and sent a simple blessing up towards the shop and miracled an extra 100 pounds into the till that ought to cover the cost of whatever Crowley had stolen.

Crowley had also miracled an extra 200 pounds into the till earlier, already sensing the lecture Aziraphale would give him if he were ever to find out, about the robbery and also because he knew the owner would take the extra money and use it to buy….well, something nefarious, he hoped. Spending money in a capitalist society was technically automatically a bit evil, isn’t it? He didn’t know anymore. Anyway, he’d also made sure to glue a coin to the sidewalk just in front of the shop’s front doors before leaving. No harm causing a bit more chaos, just in case.

In the end, the owner would wake with a minor headache, blurred a bit at the edges from the effect of so many blessings and temptations all hitting him at once. He’d have both a very lucky, and a very unlucky, day today.

“Did you really think you could hurt someone with an umbrella, angel?” The question pulled Aziraphale out of his thoughts. 

“Well, I thought...I could do what you said. Just...believe it was a flaming sword, and then it would be a, well, a Flaming Sword.”

“Yeah, I can see it now. Flaming like anything,” Aziraphale hated seeing that shit-eating grin of Crowley’s. And he loved it, too.

“Yeah, well, be glad it didn’t work or you’d be a goner, already. So. You’re welcome.”

“Mm, sure. Barely got out with my life,” Crowley snickered at the angry little pout on Aziraphale’s face. “Ah, come on. You’ve had a fright. Big, scary Guardian, you. Why don’t we grab some takeaway, hm? And then we can make out on Gertie’s sofa, what do you think?”

“Crowley, you fiend,” Aziraphale grumbled. “Yes, alright. Miss Gambini said there’s a rather nice spot for Chinese just down two blocks?”

“Perfect. And we’ll stop by that place for that---”

“Oh, that red wine at the---”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Crowley had drifted back into the flat to give the small kitten on the armchair a tender scratch under the chin, and locked up behind him, sliding his hand easily into Aziraphale’s hand beside his. He swung their arms playfully, and reached over to place a wet kiss at Azirahale’s temple, effectively wiping the last of his pout off of his face. As they opened the heavy door back out to the stairs, they were hit by thick, wet sheets of cold rain, pelting down at their warm bodies. 

“Good thing you’ve brought an umbrella, innit?” Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale’s other hand that still carried the thing, and at Aziraphale’s face added, “Ah, I’m sorry, rather it’s a good thing you brought your Flaming Sword, isn’t it?” 

He laughed wildly at the little smack Aziraphale gave him in the ribs, still clutching at Crowley’s hand, and opened the umbrella smoothly over their heads. Aziraphale tucked himself a bit closer to Crowley’s shoulder, and they wandered off down the quiet, dark roads, past the bookshop, still swinging their arms gently, back and forth, back and forth.


End file.
